3 indicted in meth-lab probe

JEFFERSON - A Jackson County grand jury has indicted three people in connection with a small-scale meth lab, a method of manufacturing the drug that seems to be on the rise.

Melissa Dawn Elkins, 37, and William Taylor Turney, 29, both of Commerce, face two counts each of attempting to manufacture methamphetamine and criminal conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine in connection with a lab they allegedly set up at a house at 260 Spring St. in Commerce.

Marion Patrece Harrington, 40, who lived at the Spring Street address, was charged with two counts of conspiracy to manufacture methamphetamine. Police said she allowed Elkins and Turney to cook two pots of meth at her house. She was also indicted on a single possession of marijuana charge.

All three are scheduled to be arraigned June 6 in Jackson County Superior Court.

Commerce police arrested Elkins, Turney and Harrington at the end of February after an anonymous tipster called to tell them someone was making meth at the Spring Street house, said Lt. Ken Harmon, a Commerce police investigator who helped investigate the case.

The lab was the first that Commerce officers had found there for several years, Harmon said. The residents were cooking methamphetamine in soda bottles and other plastic containers popular with one-pot meth cooks, he said.

They appeared to be working together to make the drug for personal use or for small-scale sales, Harmon said. Smaller labs are evidently part of a larger trend worrying state law enforcement officials.

"Whenever you started to see the laws limiting the raw components for methamphetamine, of course, the manufacturers had to make adjustments," Harmon said at the time.

"What we've started to see is more of these one-pot cooks. You don't need as much of the raw material, so it's easier for them to gather up the materials."

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation helped to dismantle 289 small-scale meth labs in 2010, nearly twice as many as the 152 found in 2008 and the 165 found in 2009, according to federal crime statistics.